What happens when a physician is just as curious about the human story as he is about the science?

Dr. Avraham “Avi” Cooper is a pulmonary and critical care physician at The Ohio State University, an educator, writer, poet, and co-host of The Curious Clinicians podcast. But this conversation goes far beyond medicine.

Avi shares the story of growing up in the shadow of his late father — a brilliant physician with a photographic memory who died climbing Mount Kilimanjaro when Avi was only six — and how that legacy helped shape both the doctor and the man he became.

We talk about why curiosity may be one of the most important skills a physician can have, what our medical system gets wrong when it doesn’t allow doctors time to ask “why,” the incredible resilience of the human body, and why literature may have made Avi a better physician.

And near the end, Avi reads his poem Hymn for a Dying Girl — written after one of his early experiences caring for a critically ill young woman in the ICU. It leads us into a beautiful conversation about death, dignity, family, and what it means to meet patients exactly where they are.

We also get a preview of Avi’s upcoming book, Why Doesn’t Your Stomach Digest Itself? Tales of the Human Body’s Remarkable Resilience, co-written with Dr. Tony Breu. Avi will be back on Ferocious Ambition in March for Part Two, when we’ll dive into the book.

Links mentioned in this episode:

Dr. Avi's website: https://www.avrahamcooper.com/

The Mountain — Avi’s essay about his father: https://journal.chestnet.org/article/S0012-3692(24)00286-1/fulltext

The Curious Clinicians — a medical podcast that asks “Why?”: https://curiousclinicians.com/

Hymn for a Dying Girl — Avi’s poem published in CHEST: https://journal.chestnet.org/article/S0012-3692(18)30266-6/pdf

Pre-order for his book: https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324117117/about-the-book/reviews